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The Trek Curse

I had an interesting conversation at work about this today. Rather than try to overanalyze or punditize it, I’ll just quote it verbatim!

Me: “Did you hear about Star Trek Online?”
D: “Big shock there… that’s an impossible license. THE impossible license.”
Me (meekly): “I think I could write a decent Star Trek MMO…”
D: “OF COURSE YOU DO! EVERYONE does! That’s the Trek curse! EVERYONE thinks they can write the ONE Star Trek game that will boldly work where no Star Trek game has worked before!”
Me: “(You didn’t actually say that exactly, but I’m just filling in your lines with cool catch phrases.)”
D: “As long as they are GOOD catch phrases. But my point is that every designer thinks they can make a Star Trek game because they all watched Star Trek as a kid and think they *know* the license. But everyone has different expectations of the license…”
M: “Does it pass the wife test? Because my wife will watch Star Wars, but she won’t watch Star Trek.”
Me: “But see, my wife loves Star Trek, but she is bored by Star Wars. She thinks it has too many explosions.”
D: “See? Everyone has their own expectations.”